This is a big, busy thread. There are some guidelines to keep things nice and orderly:
Steam sales are legendary. From small to honking massive:
One game a day goes on sale at 10am PT for 24 hours.
Starts 10am PT Tuesday and ends Thursday afternoon.
Starts midday Thursday and ends with the sale rollover Monday. Sometimes accompanies free play weekends for MP titles.
Many of the publishers games will get a modest discount with a single title or franchise getting a featured day with a deeper discount. Follow the big sale guidelines.
Mardi Gras time here in the thread. Huge swaths of games go on discount, with daily specials, flash sales, community vote sales, and whatever else the evil geniuses at Valve cook up to separate us from our money. There are often metagames such as sale achievements or collectibles or other madness that rewards buying, playing and gifting games and participating in Steam's community. The summer sale usually starts in the last week of June and runs for two weeks, and the Winter sale usually runs for two weeks across Christmas and New Year's.
Other retailers like Amazon and Green Man Gaming get into the act now too, so there are often great values to be had during sales for Steam-activatable games from other sites.
Birthdays are basically a big deal around this thread.
If you are waiting for a particular game, be sure to mind the countdown timer on the game's store page. Starting Winter 2013, the last day of the sale was just a recap of top sellers. Most games went back to full price.
Refunds are designed to remove the risk from purchasing titles on Steam—not as a way to get free games. If it appears to us that you are abusing refunds, we may stop offering them to you. We do not consider it abuse to request a refund on a title that was purchased just before a sale and then immediately rebuying that title for the sale price.
PA Steam Groups
We have two core Steam groups: Both of these groups have chat, and both are used sometimes to try to limit giveaways to community members.
Penny Arcade is a general Steam group for folks from the PA forums.
PA G&T Adventure Team is a group that was originally created to get multi/coop going for smaller or older titles. Because it is actively moderated, a lot of folks use it as a giveaway group (to avoid problems we've had in the past with non-forumers scooping up gifts intended for the community.) Membership is locked during major sales.
How do I join the Steam groups?
If you've just arrived, hang out here in the thread for a while and talk games with us before you ask for membership. When you do ask, include a link to your Steam profile. Membership to the two Steam groups is for reasonably active community members. If you have been on the PA forums for a while and have participated, post a link to your Steam profile here in the thread and a Steam group mod will take care of you.
If you've been on the forums for three days during a major sale and your only posts have been to casually express your strong desire for certain games, your request is unlikely to find a positive reception. Ditto if your very first post on the forum is to ask for group membership. Sadly this does happen sometimes.
The best parts of this community are available to you now just by showing up. Read some posts, make some posts, ask to be invited as a guest to chat, buy some games, play some games, etc. Group membership is modest icing on delicious cake.
Warning: This guy's going to make you buy games. All the games.Where are you guys getting those nifty Steam Signatures?
Check out
Alabaster Slim for his lovely signature generator.
Has Game X ever been Price Y? How can I keep track of all the sales and discounts?http://isthereanydeal.com/ is your friend. You can sync your Steam wishlist to it if you like and get notifications when prices drop. Double check that you are getting a Steam key from a 3rd party site before buying.
How do the new [codes ][ /codes] tags even work?
Put a series of Steam activation codes (or activation links, or movie quotes, or winning lottery numbers...) inside the tags, each on its own line like this (without the spaces inside the brackets, of course):
[codes ]code 1
code 2
code 3
...
code n[/codes]
That will create a little box with a clickable link and a number. Each forumer who clicks the link will get a popup and a PM with the next line. Each line can only be sent out once and each forumer can only click once. It was originally designed to allow developers to hand out lots of codes for a game without some goose grabbing the lot.
Just one code thingy per post!
Note: [ code ][ /code ] is a different tag. Be sure to get that "s" up in there!
Steam Game Categories
You can make a copy of of the file below to backup your category tags!
\Steam\userdata\*USERIDHERE*\7\remote \shareconfig.vdf
Trading cards? Badges? Steam profile levels? Boosters? FOILS?! What the hell?
Jrraghen put together this helpful guide:
The House of Cards!
Many games now have trading cards. You can earn some of these cards by playing/idling the game. Some of them you'll need to get by trading or buying them from the Steam community market. Completing a set lets you craft a badge, which gives you an emoticon, a profile wallpaper, a coupon (usually) and profile experience. Leveling up your profile increase your friend cap, earns you customization options for your Steam profile and, allegedly, increases your chances of getting a booster. Boosters are packs of three cards that show up in your inventory sometimes. You can open them or sell them on the market. Sometimes cards are foil. Each game has a regular badge with five levels and a single-level foil badge. Oh, and you must be a certain level to get your card drops.
But that's pure, diabolical evil!
Yes, that's right.
Can we trade cards in the thread?
You can but it's inefficient. Use the Steam feature that shows you which of your friends has the cards you need. Join the Steam group we created for trading cards:
PA Card Sharks
Also check this
handy tip from HiT BiT:
A little Steam trading trick some of you may not be aware of:
- Go to your Steam Inventory
- Click on the "Trade Offers" button
- Then click on the "Who can send me Trade Offers?" link
- Below you will find a "Trade URL"
You can share this URL with other Steam users to allow them to directly send you a trade offer even if they aren't on your friends list.
You can share this URL anywhere, including your forum sig.
If you have shared or posted your URL and would like to stop receiving trade offers from it use the "Create New URL" button.
A new Trade URL will be created turning the previous one inoperative.Is Steam down?!
Is it Tuesday? It's probably scheduled maintenance.
It's not Tuesday. Is Steam down?!http://isSteamdown.com/What are you people talking about? Why hats and what is an "Isy?"
Check out the handy Steam Thread Primer, written by
@Smokestacks!
Steam Thread Primer:Gaben/The Newell - Gabe Newell, Director of Valve Software. Called "Gaben" because in the commentary for older Source Engine games he would tell players to email him at "Gabe N. at valvesoftware.com" with user feedback.
Serve the Newell - To buy games on Steam, to give Gaben your money. From this comic edit.
Bad Rats - An incredibly awful 'physics' based puzzle game, available on Steam, notorious for being as awkward as it is broken. Will haunt your dreams. Popular gift to give to people.
Class - An attribute demonstrated by people who will generously purchase games and then give them to internet strangers.
Class War - When two or more forumers buy each other games back and forth until one of them gives up. I know this sounds really crazy, but it happens.
Bundle - Originally the Humble Indie Bundle, which was a "pay what you want" system for a group of games, now usually means any website selling a group of games (usually able to be registered on Steam) for a low price.
Giveaway/A Giveaway - Usually refers to a giveaway on Steamgifts.com, a website where you list a game you want to give away, people enter, and then a winner is randomly decided among all entrants after a set time period.
Hats/The Hatconomy - The purchase and sale of in-game hats or sometimes other items in TF2. Some hats are very valuable, which is funny because they are just hats for videogame characters. People who have valuable hats or other items in their inventories sometimes get messages from random people on Steam begging for those items.
Backlog - The list of games you have purchased, but have not gotten around to playing yet. Tends to grow over time, often to immense proportions. If you do not have a backlog yet, between the thread and the sales you will get one.
Spies/Russian Spies - People who lurk the thread or try to get into the various PA Steam groups not to participate in the community, but to try and get free games.
Steamsigs - Custom forum signatures that display a link to your Steam profile, as well as an image of a game you are currently playing, have played the most in the last two weeks, or have played the most over all time (if you haven't played any games on Steam in the last two weeks). Available here courtesy of forumer Suds. Having a Steam sig (or some sort of clickable link to your Steam profile in your signature) makes it considerably easier for people to add you to their friends list.
Child's Play - A charity started by the writer and artist behind PA that raises money for videogames/toys that go to children's hospitals, originally started in '03, has grown every year. Helps sick kids feel better about their time in the hospital while simultaneously refuting the idea that gamers are antisocial jerks.
Isy - Big Classy, a forumer. Formerly known as "Big Isy", he was granted the new name after donating a hefty amount of money to Child's Play during a fundraiser. Sometimes referred to as Isy, which might cause confusion to people who haven't been around very long.
Summer Dale - A phone's auto-correction of "Summer Sale", which through some sort of internet voodoo produced an actual entity, a smooth voiced funk loving man who lives in a world where the 80s reign eternal and supreme. Also sometimes used to describe the upcoming Summer Sale itself.
Rainbow and/or Slash - Two forumers by the name of Rainbowdespair and slash000 who are notable for developing the third and fourth installments of the Penny Arcade: On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness series. Also developed Breath of Death VII and Cthulu Saves the World, two RPGs that, along with the Rainslick games, are available on Steam.
Also, sometimes shit gets real. Like that time we all murdered each other for bloodsport games. And there was a kabob conspiracy and a kind of Cthulhu bunny.
@akajaybay took us
down that particular rabbit hole.
Why are you people obsessed with Bad Rats and Amnesia?
A moment of ill-advised swagger from anoffday turned into a horrifying LP of Bad Rats which,
because reasons, turned into over $6000 raised for Child's Play.
CorriganX raised over $1100 for Child's Play via Amnesia.December 2018 Classy Christmas total, $2,190.06!!!I'm working on finding some of the other old totals from Summer Drives as well, if you find them before me, please PM me! Thanks!
Previous Years
Classy Christmas 2016: $5,315.84
***If someone finds the 2015 total before I can dig it up, please PM me,
@Mudzgut***Classy Christmas 2014: $9,248
Classy Christmas 2013: $11,903
Fanda
shared this with us:
For our Christmas fundraiser to restore TychoCelchuuu's threadmaking privileges (and help the kids), I donated to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. This week I received a nice letter from them! I figured I'd share part of it with y'all, since this applies to all of you at least as much as it does to me.
What is this Steamgifts site? I wish to create a giveaway! I cannot enter a giveaway!
Steamgifts is a neat site that lets people create giveaways for games on Steam. Points for entering giveaways are accumulated over time, so just wait a bit if you need points. Entry to giveaways can be limited by Steam group membership to prevent mooches from getting games.
How do I make one of those cool Steam Gifts signature giveaway banners?What are all these bundles you people keep talking about?
In addition to Steam sales and sales of Steam keys on other sites and gifts, we live in a golden age of bundles! Bundle sites sell batches of games for modest amounts of money, often as low as a few dollars. Many, but not all, contribute to charity and many, but not all, give you Steam keys for the games. Sometimes you'll buy an indie gem that isn't even on Steam, and later when arrives on Steam you will get a key through the bundle site. Be careful if you plan to gift some of the games, as sometimes the bundled games will come in a single Steam key. We have a separate bundles thread.
I have too many games! Which do I play?Steam Roulette randomly picks a game for you to play.
I have too many games! How do I move them to my new hard drive?Steam Mover makes transporting your massive library much easier.
But wait! I have ALL OF THE GAMES installed! I need more space on my hard drive! wat i do?You download Tikione Steam Cleaner and clean it up.Steam Cleaner also available through GitHub!Okay that helped. Now I have more room for stuff. Free stuff.Isorn wrote:
Someone on a Steam forum made
a nice list of all free DLC you can add to your Steam account if you have the base-game but that thread is currently not available so I figure I post it here. Since it is pretty easy to miss some of these.
The sale prices aren't right! What's going on?! Oh God, the darkness is closing in...
During the seasonal sales, you are one of a million monkeys hammering F5 at 10am PT to see the new sales. The system is always borked for 5-20 minutes. Take a deep breath. The Newell will deliver, and the new dailies will be available for 48 hours.
Why are some games not available in my region?
Publishers determine what countries get what games. Someone in a suit decided that it wasn't worth the money to make the game available to your region, so it isn't available on Steam. This also applies to cases of games having edited/censored versions showing up on Steam in certain countries. The good news is that you can generally get around this by having someone from another region gift or trade you the game.
Steam is downloading slowly. What gives?
You can head to Steam -> Settings -> Downloads + Cloud and change your download region until things improve. Since other regions are typically less populated, you will probably get somewhat better results even if the new server is in another country.
VR - it's that new thing, you know, with the goggles and the doo-dads.
EvmaAlsar did a great write up about various
VR game options on Steam. Check it out!
Posts
Safe!
I've finally sorted all my games in my database by rating, which should help me pick games I can play in front of the two year old and continue to slay the backlog. Go me!
I wanted the blue tag on the thread so I could find it later. No one told me it was a trap until after I stepped in it
Is that why you're gnawing your leg off?
Do not engage the Watermelons.
The Steam thread on PA is always a trap.
Edit: I'm glad that I'm not the only one who posts to mark the thread to find later.
Steam: betsuni7
I'm thinking a sign that says Kalnaur Season
But can your spymaster still try to assassinate themselves?
3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00
Don't think you can unring that genie
Steam ID: Good Life
It really sounds like they've brought in elements of Crusader Kings 2's focus on colorful individual characters into Total War and placed it in one of the more interesting settings we've had for a war game.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Mmm, new target smell....
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
In the year 2019, PC games cost $30 3 months after release.
In the year 2025, PC games will cost $10 3 months after release.
In the year 2035, PC games will cost $2, a bottle cap, and some pocket lint 3 weeks after release.
Somewhat lackluster open world with combat that reminds people of nu-Doom is what I'm reading. Are you willing to deal with sedate side activities in exchange for shotgunning dudes off cliffs and throwing down a force field that hurts enemies in front of a vortex enemies into it?
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Eh. I'm mainly curious because I did enjoy the first game, but if I get the sequel it'll be a year from now on some super deep discount.
I tried Steep, and with everything cranked up it's gorgeous. I would definitely play some sort of exploration/survival game in its engine, but I don't think I have it in me to do another Ubisoft xp grind game. The rocket wingsuit is a blast, I have to admit though.
There's no need to fight. Just gift both of them!
Go!
Fixed that for you guys, heh.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
Look Steam, I read it for the articles play it for the combat mechanics, okay?! The breast physics are entirely incidental! If I were some sort of boob-obsessed pervert, why would I have picked Bayman as my main??
Crookz?
EVERYBODY WANTS TO SIT IN THE BIG CHAIR, MEG!
Image and Form is doing an art contest for Steamworld Quest. They will select 3 winners to receive a steam key. Looks like they are accepting art from any Steamworld game as well, though they would prefer Quest stuff.
In news, May brought me a new job and a better cash flow right in time for the summer sale and birthday, so I got that going on. Expect more activity once I'm settled in. (he says, being not active ever)
Same, but with normal-esque visual novels. "Hey, we saw you played CLANNAD for a bit, so we'll recommend other well known games in the genre like Nekopara"
Do not engage the Watermelons.
Made worse that you can buy it for like $45 off fanatical with a gamestop code (~$49 without).
Still gotta wait, learned not to preorder. Even if they throw in the Yellow Turban faction.
Oh great, now I'm gonna be sitting at work wondering what you've done until I can get home and turn on the computer
I'd be lying if I said prices for PC games didn't color my response to the price of games on Switch. I understand there's labor involved in porting a title, but a game like Dragon's Dogma shouldn't be selling at near full retail when it changes platforms.
For another example, eight-year-old Skyrim is still £45 (over $58) for Switch. And even second-hand, a Switch system runs more than I paid for my (also second-hand) Xbox One X.
The Switch is a great machine, certainly, but it's not a cheap proposition.
Steam | XBL
Ahhhh, don't give Dover more fuel for his fire.
Steam: betsuni7
Oh I did something absolutely wonderful. Bwa ha ha ha!
I used to do that before I discovered the bookmark feature. Now I just bookmark my favorites and have easy access to them when they update. Of course the trade off is having to manually browse the forum for new postings, but it’s not that big a deal.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
You have to set up a new account but a few are reporting that saves and games transfer across (still seems subjective and game specific)
I have some bookmarked and others not. Left the Steam one unmarked since it used to fly too fast for me to keep up. Now that it settled down a bit I might be able to do it again.
Steam: betsuni7
False. By 2035 bottle caps will be the only currency.